Page 27 - Climate Control News magazine Oct-Nov 2022

Review
MAIN: There were thousands of visitors daily.
LEFT: Panelists discuss the skills crisis and lack of visibility.
BELOW LEFT: There were more than 220 stands at this year’s exhibition.
FAR LEFT: The entire three day event was a hive of activity.
BELOW FAR LEFT: This year’s event exceeded expectations.
BELOW: Visitor numbers topped 7,400.
BELOW LEFT: Many ARBS sessions were at full capacity.
Steve Smith, an airconditioning and refrigera- tion technician with 35 years’ teaching experi- ence at TAFE NSW highlighted the problem of a shrinking pool of technicians finishing their courses with full qualifications. Last year, that number was as low as 900.
He said that part of the problem for a high drop-out incidence is the low entry level stand- ard for the courses, and in fact the subject mat- ter is quite advanced. He said this needs to be made clearer to candidates from the outset.
Grace Foo, principal consultant at DeltaQ pre- sented some of the challenges faced by women trying to forge a career in the HVACR sector.
In the building services sector, she said capa- ble women are being pushed out of the industry due to unequal remuneration and a lack of sup- port and recognition.
Industry veteran and Temperzone managing director, Robert Beggs, said the education sys- tem is not keeping pace with the evolution of technology in the trade.
Beggs said that to some extent the onus of responsibility has fallen on manufacturers.
He noted that when benchmarking salaries recently he discovered that in one of the most widely read industry sources for salary bench- marking, refrigeration did not even exist as a category.
Beggs said the visibility of the industry as a potential career path is very low and that makes attracting talent “very, very challenging”.
Ura Sarfejoo, leader for digital solutions and
sustainable infrastructure for Johnson Controls ANZ, made a compelling argument for increas- ing diversity as a solution to the talent shortage.
She said STEM graduates are almost entirely unaware of HVACR as a possible career path. Once informed about the scope of the exciting projects in the industry, their interest is piqued, but it’s up to the industry to go out there and raise awareness of HVACR as an exciting career path for girls and boys, not only secondary and tertiary education level, but to start younger at primary school levels too.
“We’ve got a generation that is looking for career purpose,” she said. “When these young people walk onto the job, diversity, inclusion and social impact are priorities from day one.”
A PLACE FOR SPORTS STARS, SUPERHEROES
While there were plenty of product launches and big machinery to see this year, there was also an interesting mix of sports stars and superheroes.
The legendary Mark Winterbottom was at Actron Air’s stand while Mark Taylor was spotted mixing it up at the Fujitsu General stand.
Wonder Woman and Thor caused quite a stir at the Beijer Ref stand and for anyone feeling hungry the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Air Conditioners Australia stand had BBQ’s daily complete with beers, pork belly and yakitori.
CLIMATE CONTROL NEWS
OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2022
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